Ingrid Bleynat, Vendors’ Capitalism: A Political Economy of Public Markets in Mexico City (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021), 264 pp.

Abstract

‘recognizes the crucial significance of immigrant social capital and ethnic resources’ but also situates them within a ‘wider social, economic, and political contexts of the host country’ (p. 4). While Kim’s research highlights substantial ethnic resources – such as gye (rotating credit system) and the circulation of capital and expertise among family and community members – it also registers business connections with the Jewish community which had dominated the garment industry in prior decades, and the complicated labour relations formed with co-ethnics, other immigrant groups, and native Argentines against the backdrop of changing economic situations, industry-wide informal practices and robust (yet often unenforced) labour laws. As such, this study provides a comprehensive and complex, rather than reductive, understanding of Korean experiences and entrepreneurship. Also notable and enriching is the weight given to the multitude of experiences of Korean immigrants as recounted directly by interviewees, from the earliest of Korean immigrants to second-generation ethnic Koreans born in Argentina, that reflect the subjectivity, heterogeneity and hybridity of the Korean diaspora in Argentina and beyond. Applying the theory of mixed embeddedness – beyond broad economic and political situations and the industry’s structure – to the many issues that might have affected the ‘emergence, consolidation, and evolution of the Korean garment business’ (p. 5), From Sweatshop to Fashion Shop should be of interest to readers in multiple disciplines studying Argentina, the Korean diaspora, Asian–Latin American connections, inter-ethnic labour relations and ethnic entrepreneurship, among other topics. An aspect that could be further explored in future research would be the function of race in this industry and environment. While Kim’s interviewees did not much raise the topic of racism and discrimination – other than to point indirectly at a general lack of ‘social capital’ – racial ideas, stereotypes and hierarchies appear to permeate inter-group relationships and perceptions among ethnic Koreans, Bolivians, Jews and mainstream Argentines.